


The Cat Comes Out of the Bag

by IlIcythings



Series: Trans!Alec [2]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: (he deserves it), Alec is really happy in this, Coming Out, Ellie Miller is a good friend, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, Trans Male Character, canon-typical bickering, choosing a name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IlIcythings/pseuds/IlIcythings
Summary: Alec and Ellie catch a lucky break in solving their burglary case. However, talk of the suspect over lunch soon turns into a discussion that neither of them had expected.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Series: Trans!Alec [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992193
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	The Cat Comes Out of the Bag

**Author's Note:**

> This is a loose sequel to 'In a Bind', so I've put it in the same series. It's recommended, but not necessary, to read that one first.

A drop of blood on a sharp wire fence and a witness spotting a mysterious figure in a flowy dress cracked the case wide open. Their suspect was River Tyler, who had grown up, and recently returned to, Broadchurch. Alec walked up to their suspect’s door, with Ellie, and knocked.

After a few moments, the door opened, and the person standing there looked slightly shocked. “Ellie Barret?”

Ellie replied, “It’s Ellie Miller, now, River. I’m a detective sergeant for Broadchurch police, and this is DI Alec Hardy. Would you mind coming with us to the station so we can ask you a few questions about the local burglaries?”

“Not at all. It’s nice to see you again, despite the circumstances.” There was a small pause as they all walked to the car. “You did go into the police, then.”

“I did,” Ellie replied, “Were my career aspirations that obvious?”

River smiled a little before replying, “All you talked about was Cagney and Lacey.”

Alec took note of this, with a perfectly neutral expression, so he could tease Miller later.

Ellie’s face contorted. “Oh, I forgot about that!”

“I’ll see you two back at the station,” Alec said, in a rare moment of social awareness, “give you some time to catch up.”

Ellie gave a wave as Alec turned for the short walk back to the station.

Once River was inside the interview room, Ellie started chatting again. "That was very nice of you, giving us some time to chat. It’s been a while since I’ve seen River. I went to school with hir, you know? Year above me.” She paused for a second. "Oh, hir's non-binary, by the way."

"What are River's pronouns?", he asked, silently congratulating himself on the even tone.

Ellie looked slightly surprised. “Ze/hir, still the same as when we went to school. I thought ze left town to go to Uni in London after graduating, but I guess ze came back home."

They started towards the interview room. Alec stopped them before they entered the room.

“Do you have any idea why ze did this, Miller?”

“I have a hunch, but I’ve got absolutely no evidence for it”, she replied.

He grunted an acknowledgement, before almost smirking. "Let's find out hir motive then, Lacey."

“Oh, you fucking bastard!”

  
The interview was quick; River confessed quickly and answered all of their questions willingly. They had no need to keep hir at the station overnight, so they decided to let hir go. They walked hir out of the interview room after getting some contact details.  
  
"I'm so sorry Ellie, I should have left it, it was all years ago, but I just couldn't let it go," River said.  
  
"We'll speak to everyone involved. Most of them just want their stuff returned. We'll be in touch if anyone does decide to press charges, but I seriously doubt it because you didn’t take anything too valuable. Thanks for being so forthcoming.” They passed the front desk. “You should come round for dinner sometime, you can meet Tom and Fred, and we can talk about the good old days."  
  
"I'd love to. I'll be in touch soon. Thank you again."  
  
Ze walked out the station doors, into the salty air.  
  
Alec waited until River was out of earshot, and then turned to Ellie and said, half-joking, "Miller, you can't invite everyone who comes into the station to be interviewed to dinner at yours. Ze just confessed to stealing from 6 different households!”

“Ze also told us the motive, and I was not one of the people involved in taunting hir during school” Ellie replied, astutely. “The school did next to nothing at the time, just gave the students involved a half-hour detention during maths and a useless reprimand.” She paused, then tried to lighten the mood, “I can’t really blame River for what ze did after what I did to, well, uh, you know.”

Alec grimaced at both the lack of punishment for River’s bullies, and then further at the near mention of Joe. He deliberately ignored Ellie’s last sentence. “They’ve gotten justice served to them now, I suppose.” He looked at the time. “Want to get some lunch from the chip shop?”

“Yes, sir.” She scrutinised his face before asking, sceptically, “Are you going to have the chips?”

“Christ, no! I’ve got a salad.”

“That sounds more like you. Let’s go.”

After Alec got his salad, they walked to the chip shop and then found their usual bench at the harbourside.

“You picked up River’s pronouns quickly,” Ellie said, before putting more chips in her mouth.

Alec shrugged. “It’s just basic respect. Just need to repeat it a few times in your head and it’s fine.” _It’d be rather hypocritical of me, too_. There was a natural pause as Hardy got lost in his thoughts. _I wonder if they teach about us in schools now._

Miller paused, not picking up her next chip.

_Shite, I said that out loud. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck._

“Is that you coming out to me, Hardy?” she asked cautiously, slowly lifting the chip, taking a bite more for appearance’s sake than anything else.

Alec couldn’t form any words. He nodded slowly, stomach somewhere near his feet.

Ellie swallowed. “You good with he/him pronouns?”

He nodded again, afraid to speak.

Her face lost the tension that it had held. “Oh, alright. I’m glad you told me.” She moved right on, completely unperturbed. “Tom said something about a documentary his class watched in school, about the Stonewall riots, and how it was really educational. He came home and did a ton of research. Most interested I’ve ever seen him in a school project! He almost missed football training trying to find a good list of sources for his essay.”

Ellie’s characteristic chatter, and the lack of a negative reaction to him coming out, calmed him down considerably. She was absolutely fine with it. _She was perfectly fine about River. Why wouldn’t she be fine with me?_

Ellie didn’t let him dwell on his thoughts for too long, continuing with her story, “I was really happy to help him out with it. I’m glad that they’re talking about our history a little more in school.” She paused, suddenly realising something, “I’m bisexual, by the way. I don’t think that’s ever come up.”

“Why would that ever come up?”, he asked, confused.

“Tons of people flirt with me at the bar, Hardy, but you’ve never been to the bar with me.”

“I have too! I came with you after we solved a case, that one time!”

“Yes, and Jenkinson was there. I wouldn’t flirt with anyone in front of her!”

Alec shuddered a little at the thought. “Right, I can’t blame you for that.”

He paused to chew a cherry tomato. “She’s the only other person here who knows. And Daisy, of course.”

“Fair enough. I think everyone local knows I’m bi, but that’s only because I help with coordinating police presence during the pride parade. And I was a bit wilder in my youth, that probably helped.”

“You say that like you’re old, Miller. You’re still youthful.”

Ellie smiled. “Is that a genuine compliment I hear?”

Alec mock-frowned. “Don’t push your luck, Lacey!”

“I’m never going to hear the end of that, am I?”

Alec’s grin answered that question sufficiently.

They ate in silence a little longer before Alec’s curiosity got the better of him. “Are the people around here pretty accepting of, well, the community?”

Ellie nodded and then gestured towards her mouth, still closed, and chewing. When she finished her mouthful, she clarified, “The town’s pretty open about it. We have people from all walks of life here in June, and many of them celebrate. It’s great for local business and it’s another reason for us to party. It’s funny how you’ve managed to avoid any and all mention of it.”

Alec merely nodded, chewing slowly, taking in the information.

Ellie suddenly sat up. _Here it comes, she hates me,_ the irrational voice in his head taunted.

“Did you choose your name?”

“What? Hardy?”

“No, you knob, your first name!”

“Uhm, it was my father’s. He’d always wanted a son with his name.” He laughed a little, uncomfortably, before adding “He was a bit disappointed when I was born, I think”.

“How about now?”

He snorted in surprise, barely keeping from laughing at the thought, “Even more disappointed, Miller. He had nothing nice to say about the first pride parades, down in London. I think the only thing which he would be happy about in my life is the fact that I work in the police, but he was thinking of a more secretarial role.” Alec half-grinned. “I stopped talking to him as soon as I moved out, Miller. He doesn’t know that I’m alive, I don’t know if he is.”

“Your face was plastered all over the news, how could he- oh,” the realisation hit Ellie quickly, “oh, that doesn’t quite work, does it?”

Alec, at this point, was laughing, “No, not quite.”

Ellie chuckled a bit before becoming more thoughtful and saying, “Anyway, my point was going to be, uh, you don’t have to have your father’s name if you don’t want to. You definitely don’t like it-”

Alec snorted. “That’s an understatement”

“So why not change it?”

“It’s close to my birth name.”

“Do you like that?”

“No.”

Ellie shook her head a little in disbelief. “Then why would you want your name close to it? Change it to something completely different, something that you actually like.”

“I can- I can’t do that, Miller.”

“You can if you want to!”

“Wha- What do you mean?”

Ellie’s face puffed up a little in annoyance, a familiar sight, but she calmed herself down a bit. “Hardy, you don’t even have to be trans to change your name. I was thinking of changing mine from _Eleanor_ when I was 20.”

Alec couldn’t believe it. “Your name is Eleanor?”

“Oi, no need to sound so disgusted!”

“It’s just, well, Ellie suits you so well!”

“That’s why I go by it, Hardy, I like it a million times more _because_ it suits me. Which is why you should consider changing your name.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’,” Ellie mocked.

“Alright, lay off!” He put some salad in his mouth so he wouldn’t need to talk. He chewed, a little more thoroughly than necessary, then spoke. “Well, my name isn’t going to be Chris Cagney.”

Ellie just glared.

“So, how do you, uh, go about choosing a new name for yourself?”

“I mean baby name websites are pretty good. You can sometimes find ones that allow you to find the most popular names in a particular year so that your name doesn’t sound too odd for someone your age”

“You calling me old, Miller?”

“No, the ‘you’ was strictly in the 3rd person usage.”

“Makes me feel much better, Miller.”

“I’m glad, sir,” she replied, drily.

“Don’t test me, Lacey.”

“I hate you.”

They finished had their lunches, so they both got up, disposing of their trash as they walked back to the station.

“There was a kid I was friends with, at school-”

“What are you talking about, Hardy?”

“Shut up, Eleanor.”

Ellie glared at him.

“Sorry, Ellie. Just, let me finish, alright? There was a kid I was friends with at school. His name was David. I mean, I haven’t talked to him in years, but I, ah, have always really liked that name. If Daisy had been born male, that would have been the name we gave her. Do ya, ah, do ya think that’d work?”

She considered it. “David Hardy. DH. Not bad! Better than Alec.”

“Much better than Alec.” He smiled a little. “I think I like it!”

“Well that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? Does this mean I get to call you David now?”

“Only off the clock, Miller.”

“Alright, sir.”

For the rest of the day, Ellie would sneak glances into Hardy’s office and catch him mouthing his new name. To anyone else, it would look like he was reading reports, but Ellie knew better. It was almost the end of the shift, and therefore almost the time that she could begin to badger David with his first name, instead of his last. A young constable left David’s office, looking far from tears. David was in a good mood. Ellie smiled. The cat was out of the bag.

**Author's Note:**

> I did the title and last line thing!!! (Ok, not really, but I’m happy that I finally came up with a title because this had a working one for far too long) Also, there are probably more references (to real-life/Broadchurch/Doctor Who) than I can even remember, so feel free to point out ones that you noticed in a comment! 
> 
> This was written over the course of a week (feels more like a month! in and around stressing about final exams and it’s honestly the longest thing that I’ve ever written that was not for an assignment. I’m very happy about that, but it also meant I had to do soooo much proofing to make sure everything wasn’t too disjointed.


End file.
